117150-suggestion-to-help-retainattract-mature-player-base
Content ---- Where'd you hear that? No it isn't. You can play as much or as little as you want. The housing transmat makes it even easier, logout safely, then start up again exactly where you left off. SWTOR gave a boost because their content is 2 years old, and they're releasing another 5 levels. Same with WoW and their 10 new levels. This game is less than 6 months old and the endgame content isn't even complete yet. They're not going to incentivize leveling even more than it is (and it's already incredibly quick if you know use a couple basic systems and some foresight), when it just means people rush into an incomplete Elder Game. | |} ---- ---- Where'd you hear that? |} I have also heard something similar to this. While I am not sure it went as far as saying 'most' I have a feeling that something of this nature was in the Nexus Report with Mike and the 100 pages. There have definitely been comments along the lines of needing to cateer to people who do log in for shorter amounts of time as it is becoming more common. | |} ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- The problem is that if you don't play in large chunks you get a reduced sense of progression, which makes it seem more time consuming/tedious. If you play an hour here and there you get stuck in Whitevale for many gaming sessions, having to go through 6-8 levels in a single zone can leave players bored. This is especially true if they spend time doing path quests, in which they will feel even less level progression. Further, a lot of these player also don't know how bad the XP drop-off is in terms of quests under their level, so they continue to do tasks which they should skip, which further slows their progression and delays them from just entering the next zone. | |} ---- ---- To be honest, it would be better if it were. I understand you've gotten similar feedback from people you play with, but all too often the constituencies people choose to speak for on the internet are imaginary. A personal account of the things you find problematic works better as useful feedback. | |} ---- It hurts my face that you're speculating about me speculating. These are personal thoughts, but my point is that there is a large number of people that share these thoughts with me. | |} ---- So you're saying the game needs to feed people's desire for the sense of progress no matter what they do, even if it is a bunch of extraneous things that are meant to slow you down and give a broader experience? Right now, the game is well set up. People who choose to can progress quickly (even in short sessions) and people who choose not to don't have to. I suppose if the game MUST do something to placate people who can't be bothered to do a little bit of looking before they play, they could do a slightly better job explaining the different leveling tactics, but to be honest I can't think of any MMO that does. Most of the problems the OP lines up are solved by doing a bit of looking online, either here or in guides on other sites. There's a tradeoff between seeing everything and making progress quickly (which is a completely subjective thing anyway), and I have no problem with tradeoffs. | |} ---- And my point is that bringing that up doesn't lend weight to what you're saying. Not a big deal, just in the interest of helping you get your point across in the most productive way possible. | |} ---- Sure, no recent MMORPG spells out how to level the most efficiently. But, I have not played a recent game that has as big of a reduction in progression that Wildstar has, with the combination of XP drop-off and the increased kill count, when doing quests just one level below. Nor have I played a recent game that has such a glut of low level tasks that you should abandon (including the starter zone where you should avoid every single task), even when I am only questing and not partaking in dungeons/PVP. Also, no game has something like the path system (in addition to crafting), with separate quests and progression. I would guess that most people would choose to progress quickly, especially those with limited time, but it is not entirely intuitive in an MMORPG to avoid every single task quest to progress the quickest. That is if they even know the difference, because while blue bracket and different quest log makes sense once you get it, it isn't something that is readily apparent nor spelled out. You should never expect your playerbase to consult an outside source for anything, especially for low-to-mid level questing, you cannot assume the player knows anything about the genre or any of your particular mechanics (lol MoOs) unless you explain them. I am not saying that everything a player does should give them progression (housing can be a giant time suck). But it is the combination of several things (like most of the problems of WS) that lead to a lack of progression, especially in short sessions. Sure, Wildstar doesn't have to cater to the player that wants a constant sense of progression, but certainly they should expect that player to drop the game. Personally, I quickly came to hate questing (part of that was certainly an issue of beta burnout) and I knew the most efficient way to do it, the only thing that kept me around was the endgame group content, which I knew was good. | |} ---- If you think the leveling is the tedious part, either you haven't hit the endgame yet, or we have vastly differing definitions of tedium. | |} ---- How is the the game before max level different? There are a lot of things to do before max level. PvP? Lvl 6 or so. Adventures? Lvl 15. Dungeons? Lvl 20. Housing? Lvl 10(ish? Been a while.) Costumes? Lvl 7. What can you do at max level that you can't do earlier? | |} ---- ---- It's so much different, but there are whole new levels to what is available while leveling. | |} ---- The difference is in the participation in things outside of questing while leveling compared to end game. Because the XP and gear rewards are so poor in group PVE and PVP when compared to questing, very few people do them. This limits your options in terms of finding the people necessary to partake in those activities while leveling. Sure, those alternatives exist (just like Warplots exist), but the participation is too low to be a viable option. | |} ---- I agree! One reason i can't stand WoW and always quit playing was because of the faceroll nature of the game. The last thing we need is trivialized content,last i checked WoW's community is horrible.lets not recommend any other game ever follow in its footsteps! I can't speak for anyone else but i actually enjoy the RPG part of the MMO.I do support giving players plenty of options to do what they enjoy and still progress. | |} ---- Okay that's it. :angry: When I read threads like this and see people referring to making Wildstar more accessible as "trivializing" content, as if more people getting to that content would be a bad thing, that's when I really start thinking the Devs, as a group, deserve all the monkey poo that's getting flung their way. Because TimeTravel used this same word on these boards, which means it's the way that some of the devs actually think, which is appalling. I think you guys need to understand the definition of this word: Trivial: Of little value or importance. As in, not worth doing. Because easy content is not worth doing? That's a pile of steaming equivar crap. Most MMO players like easy content. Why is there screaming about the holiday content not happening? Because holiday content is easy content. Fun content. Whimsical, playful, fun content, which most MMO players want and will pay for. So naturally it's not happening. Do you all get that? Most Western MMO Players prefer easy content and that’s what they will pay for. They don’t want challenge in an MMO – that’s a dumb idea. They don’t want hours of intensity and concentration. They just want to have a good time. The more the current players and the devs sit up there on their high Warpigs claiming Wildstar is Too Good to "Trivialize" Itself For the Unwashed Masses Who Don't Appreciate Real Gaming, the faster this game will circle the drain and then just die. At this point, as sad as it is for the people at Carbine who had nothing to do with establishing this bad attitude as the game's main selling point, I think Wildstar needs to die to stand as a monument to the cost of MMO developer hubris. You're too good to make "trivial" content? It's beneath you? Commercial products that hold most of their customer base in contempt are doomed from conception, and rightfully so. Do you get that games are about playing, first and foremost? That play is, by its very nature, not a serious grind, not a job, not something that you clench your jaw to make yourself keep doing? Do you get that it's about joy, not about struggle? VIDEO GAMES ARE NOT SRS BZNS PEOPLE. They are for fun. And Wildstar is quite clearly failing to be fun for the vast majority of the people who bought it. I'm sure most people who bought this game looked at the cartoon style and the humor and went "This game looks like fun! Psycho hamsters are fun! Double jumping is fun!" They they actually played Wildstar, and there wasn't enough "NOPE!" on the Internet for how quickly and thoroughly it was rejected. Because the fun is all on the surface. In its guts, Wildstar seems to believe that gaming that isn’t a chore isn’t “real” gaming, that fun should be earned. And that’s wrong. Disastrously wrong, as Wildstar's player retention rates show. You know what’s truly trivial? A “Massively Multiplayer” game that only a few thousand people actually like enough to keep paying for. That’s as trivial as trivial gets, and that's where Wildstar is headed. In fact, some would say it's already there. "Hundreds of thousands of active players"? Shyeah, right. :rolleyes: So yeah, don't "trivialize" Wildstar. If you "trivialize" it, it might live more than a year. And right now I'm not seeing that as a positive for the MMO industry as a whole. Some lessons just have to be learned the hard way, I guess. | |} ---- ---- That's not a meme. That's a fact. Regardless of what the game is "meant" to have, at the moment it's all grind, grind, grind and RNG. It's very clearly tuned to a certain type of hardcore, which is why its retention rates are abysmal. Carbine put all of its development into pleasing the raiders. They're paying for that. They backed the wrong horse, and this is what happens when you do that. | |} ---- ---- Interesting version of history, but ultimately incorrect. I agree itemization has swung too far toward random, but as someone who was here I can say that wasn't the raider's fault, it was the people who wanted "simpler" and "more accessible" So like I said, be careful about the terms you throw around and be careful what you ask for. You may get it. | |} ---- The way the game is right now is not healthy for the game. It's not about what you personally find fun and worthwhile or what the devs personally find fun and worthwhile, unless of course you are a billionaire and are going to personally fund the game. It's about what most of Wildstar's vanished customers wanted, and didn't find. Ask yourself what that thing or things was. Better yet, ask the players who left and listen to their answers. | |} ---- ....The people who wanted the game simpler and more accessible killed it...how? By not being willing to play the game the way you and some of the devs wanted them to? Too bad. It's their money. You're not entitled to it. Wildstar is not entitled to it. Carbine is not entitled to it. If most of your players quit because they wanted simpler and more accessible -- you'd better bust your butt and make things simpler and more accessible if you want to stay in business. The free market doesn't give a flying cowpie about what you think it "ought" to support. | |} ---- ---- There's a difference between "It was too hard", and "It was too hard to be worth putting in the time and effort for the bad rewards." It's not an absolute measure of "too hard"/"too easy", it's a cost-benefit calculation. People will put up with a lot of difficulty if they feel suitably rewarded for it but they won't put up with difficulty just because the devs and other players think they should. That would be stupid. It has to be worth the effort. | |} ---- Most of them left because of bugs and gear issues, not because leveling took too long/was too ahrd | |} ---- Awwwww shit: http://wildstar-core.com/2014/09/03/wildstar-omni-core/ Edit: TL;DR: Pax Prime. | |} ---- Bugs and gear issues chased away quite a few raiders. What chased away the casuals who pay the bills was the frustrating, boring, same-old-same-old leveling grind. Go check out the commentary on the game back in June and early July when the big player desertions started to show. It wasn't the bugs and the gears that precipitated it. It was just that the game wasn't satisfying. | |} ---- I created a late night guild over on Hazak-PvP (EU) for headstart. Picked up a good number of serious players, many of whom were what you would consider older, more mature players. 25% of them quit before level 25, another 70% quit at silver dungeons, the last 5% left guild to join another. Rough estimates of course but when over a hundred players come and go by the 3rd month after launch you start to do a lot of soul-searching to understand what happened. Most of the changes that Carbine have made are the changes to retain those types of players. They just unfortunately left beforehand and none of them have been interested to come back. Even after some pleading and begging. Silver to bronze, world boss respawn timers (coming soon) and better gear itemization (coming soon) would have helped a lot. There is still the issues of having weak 3rd tank/healer classes, which really needs addressing, but on the whole, with other class changes, I think we're at a really good place for older, more time-conscious players. Veteran shiphands and this new bounty system also sound like new ways to keep people busy for short periods of time. Neighbourhoods, pulling various housing plots together, also sounds like a fun way to spend a few hours coordinating a themepark of sorts with all the various challenges you can set up there. Further ahead we should expect more sandbox elements if we really want to retain players who are not interested in raiding or PvP. To attract a mature player base is to simply reassure the 10 year+ MMO veterans that yes, they too, can play Wildstar and despite the twitch-style combat & hardcore fear-mongering, they too can excel and find something to invest in and grow with. Whether that's raiding, pvp or world building (yes, I really would like to see housing plots grow organically from plots to neighborhoods to moons or some such craziness). It's not a matter of simplifying content, no one comes back to a game for that (can you imagine, new WoW expansion, with new difficulty level, ultra-easy). They just need new features to accommodate play styles and allow players to grow, learn and eventually overcome thresholds to get into harder content. As Carbine has wanted all along. By the way, I'm still on the look out for late night, mature players if any are considering coming back to the game or are guild-less, contact me. Thanks. | |} ---- ---- No. Talking specifically about itemization here. They didn't like the way items were set up (that you had almost complete control over what stats/specials they had. It was "too complicated" (when it reality it took about 15 minutes with a simple guide to understand), so the devs changed items to fixed stats, randomly generated attributes on drops, and added the rune system. All of which made things more accessible and simpler (you could just pick the item for your class and go), but also far more frustrating when those players got to the point they needed anything from the game (like gear to do dungeons or other content). As for a more general reason why people left, it wasn't because Carbine didn't listen or wasn't willing to give them things they wanted. The vast majority of people that bailed wanted what they wanted Now. They didn't care about how long it takes to make things, or get them right, they wanted what they wanted Now, and weren't willing to wait for it, and play a game that on the whole is pretty decent all things considered. Juvenile impatience is what is killing this game, not bad devs, or mean hardcore players (because impatient hardcore players are bailing too), or anything else. | |} ---- I so miss curcuit board crafting. It was indeed "too complicated" but that was due to a lack of in game introduction that was all many of us asked for but no it was removed instead. So so so so (keep repeating until you get bored) so sad because it really made the game feel different and was so interesting. It was just too complicated not to have any instructions! | |} ---- ---- ---- In here you can get a total exp buff of around 18%. In Tera you pay a sub for 15% exp buff. That's it. You can't get or buy more. The OP is asking TO BUY HIS WAY TO 50. That's not wanting easy content, that's wanting not to do the content in the first place. That's the very definition of pay to win. And I don't think Wildstar should have any of that. Heritage exp buffs? Yeah sure, level your alts faster! account bound attunement? Why not! But no pay to friggin not play here please.I don't play most free to play games for that reason. | |} ---- Ah sorry, I totally went of track with what this post was mainly about because of idiots still trying to protect the game for what it is instead of thinking about what can be done to make it better. OP is asking for what WoW is doing but is not needed for this game... What is needed for this game is a simple sentence from people telling him how to level correctly. OP leveling in wildstar is fast enough though can be much better if PVP gives more exp and at each new level your charector gets a mission to move on to the next hub that is at the right level for you. Mainly because if you level though pvp or dungeons its a headache to just run through region and zones quests to move onto the next hub when you out level them. There needs to be a better option. Always take quests a level or two above you and mainly do the zone and region quests as these are usually better than the tasks... Alts should get hierlooms like wow or exp boost. This game sucks for alts so bad it sucks the sucks sucks.. ANd yes attunement needs to go like yesterday... no wait scratch that like 3 months ago... | |} ---- attunement is fine, except that the world boss part and the rep part is pointless and no reason to do it more than once really. Solo quests are quite interesting and dungeons are a great way to train your guild members though :) Now about heirlooms, for PVE, yes. Make the gear give you like a 50% exp buff or something and make it match a regular blue for that level. One mistake from WoW was the fact that heirloom gear is OP in PvP. That I wouldn't want. | |} ---- If removing the the world bosses and rep is actually done then yes i agree. Because then its run through the dungeons and cross your fingers for better loot so raids will be easier when the roster boss is beaten. Otherwise run dungeons and adventures with randoms and guild mates now that silver isn't required and a global community outside of 100 people can exist... I am guessing you mean solo story quests because the only interesting quests that stay interesting are zone quests and sometimes region quests. | |} ---- I meant in the attunement :D GlubGlob is probably my favorite mini boss in the game. | |} ----